


Tattooed Halves of a Whole

by babydotcom



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Autistic Zuko (Avatar), Bisexual Sokka (Avatar), Description of handpoked tattoo process, First-Time Author, How Do I Tag, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, In respect to Ozai and Kya respectively, M/M, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, QPOC author, Sokka (Avatar) Has ADHD, Tattoo Artist Sokka, Tattoos, Zukka Week 2021, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, but it's brief, covid exists, rated for language, the rest of these aren't important to the story but they're important to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 19:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30060639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babydotcom/pseuds/babydotcom
Summary: Zuko goes to get his first tattoo at the Flying Bison. His tattoo artist is pretty cute, and they've got a lot in common.ORZuko doesn't really believe in soulmates, but this is a hell of a coincidence.
Relationships: Aang & Sokka (Avatar), Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar), Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Mai & Zuko (Avatar), Minor or Background Relationship(s), Past Hahn/Sokka (Avatar) - Relationship, Past Jet/Zuko (Avatar) - Relationship, Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), past Mai/Zuko (Avatar) - Relationship, past Sokka/Yue (Avatar) - Relationship
Comments: 16
Kudos: 127





	Tattooed Halves of a Whole

**Author's Note:**

> DAY TWO, MARCH 15th  
>  **Tattoos** /// ~~Soulmates (okay maybe a little)~~

The Flying Bison was in a little two-story brick building in the plaza downtown, tucked away in a corner with a glowing white sign as its only marker. It could probably sit there unnoticed unless you knew where to look, since most of the shop went back towards the side street behind it and the entrance was pretty unremarkable. Zuko would have been worried they were closed and he'd gotten his appointment wrong if he couldn't hear music playing behind the shade-covered glass door. He checked that his car was locked for a third time before he pushed open the door, and was met by bright lights and some kind of Hindu-rap fusion music playing through speakers hanging from the ceiling. The whole shopfront was covered in art of different styles, some in color and others just black and white. Zuko was half overwhelmed by all of the stimuli but the bald guy stood at the bar caught his attention.

"Hey! How's it goin'? Can I help you?" The guy was ridiculously tall with a blue arrow tattoo gliding back from his forehead until it disappeared into the neck of his hoodie, and he had an assortment of piercings on his ears and two in his eyebrows. His mask was practically hi-vis orange and Zuko could tell within seconds of meeting him that the brightness matched his energy perfectly.

"Um, I'm good. I have an appointment? For a tattoo?" He reached up and tugged at the adjustable loop on the right side of his mask out of nerves, and then he rolled one of his rings around his finger.

He was really excited but his excitement always manifested more like anxiety. He'd agonized for a solid hour about what to wear, worried about looking punk-rock enough -- _as if that was even a thing_ \-- to get a tattoo without also looking like a try-hard. Mai had helped him finally settle on his leather jacket over a white t-shirt and black jeans after much teasing and even more eye-rolling. He still felt like the Docs were a little much but Mai had insisted they looked hot. Why he entrusted his lesbian ex to decide what made him look hot, he didn't know. Now that he was there he couldn't help but feel out of place anyway. The bald guy was dressed in all bright colors and the dark-skinned girl with the braid was in a pastel blue sweater and had over-ear headphones on while she hunched over what looked like a medical textbook. _Literally nobody cares what you're wearing, Zuko. Chill out,_ he chastised himself _._

"Nice! I'll let Sokka know you're here!"

Okay, so the artist's name was Sokka. _Good to know._ Zuko had meant to figure that out but the task got lost somewhere a mile down his to-do list. Everyone at the Flying Bison booked through instagram DM, and @boomerang-guy, professional handpoke artist and #queertattooer somehow didn't think putting his name in his bio was important. He also didn't mention it once during their brief text conversation that wasn't much more than a sorting out of schedules and Zuko's giving a brief and awkward description of the design he wanted.

It turned out that "letting Sokka know" meant just yelling his name through cupped hands in the direction of the back of shop, and Zuko was just as startled at this realization as the girl at the counter, who jumped at the noise and threw her headphones off as she glared at the bald guy.

"He'll be down in a second. I'm Aang, nice to meet you," he said and his eyes crinkled hard enough that Zuko could tell he was smiling under his mask. "So, are you excited? Nervous? Don't worry, Sokka's really good at what he does!"

"…Yeah, I saw some of his stuff on instagram, so." _Awkward._ He was too aware that the glaring girl had turned her eyes on him and was seemingly sizing him up to form a full sentence. Zuko cracked his knuckles as he waited for Sokka to appear.

The girl started talking in a low voice, and Zuko embarrassingly thought she was talking to him before he realized she wasn't speaking English. Aang listened intently before laughing at whatever the girl said and glancing back at Zuko. He replied in similar-sounding but shorter phrases, obviously not speaking a first language. It almost felt like they were talking about him and that made Zuko even more anxious. Zuko listened curiously while he played with his rings, trying to guess what language it could be, until the sound of stomping down a set of stairs pulled his attention away.

"Your guy is here! We're going out for dinner, do you want us to bring you anything from Dosirak?" Aang yells down the hallway, and a disembodied voice answers in the negative as a door bursts open.

Then Sokka appears, and Zuko starts to sweat. The guy was kind of stupid hot. He was tall, had dark skin, with shoulder-length brown hair shaved on the side. His arms were covered in tattoos that even slipped under his black tank top, and Zuko caught a peek of a silver nose ring before Sokka reached up to put his mask over his nose. He had stopped with his hand on the edge of the door he'd just come through and Zuko almost fainted at the flex of his arm as he threw it closed. And he was supposed to sit with this guy for an hour while he did Zuko's tattoo? _Spirits_.

"Uh, hey!" Sokka strode forward to meet Zuko at the counter and offered his hand. "I'm Sokka. With an - _okka_." The girl snorted. "Sozin, right?"

Zuko takes his hand, and it's warm and dry and strong in his as he shakes it slowly. "Zuko, actually."

"I see." And Sokka is still looking at him. Zuko was used to staring by now. It had been a decade since he got the scar, and most people took their sweet time trying to guess at what had happened to him with a variation of either abject horror or unrestrained morbid curiosity on their faces. Sokka recovered quickly enough, his eyebrows coming down from their spot high on his forehead and his eyes softening from confusion into something else. Zuko had a hard enough time reading people even before everyone had to cover half their faces.

Zuko drops his hand when the girl speaks up again, still speaking that mystery language but this time addressing Sokka.

"Shut up, Katara!" He glares at her for a second before turning back to Zuko, who is thoroughly confused and wishing he knew what was going on. "Let's get you started on paperwork." He nods his head toward the hallway and gestures for Zuko to walk with him.

He turns back to the pair as they pull two skateboards from under the counter. "And Aang, keep your hands off my sister, or else." He does the I'm watching you signal with warning in his eyes, and the girl, Katara, just laughs.

"Dude, the wedding is literally in three months. You can't keep doing this." Zuko snorts at that, tickled by the obviously well-worn bit between them.

"And you keep it professional, Sokka!" Katara says with a biting sweetness.

Sokka's shoulders tighten as he repeats "Shut up, Katara," and he moves further into the hallway.

The bell at the front of the shop rings with Aang and Katara's departure as the hallway opens up into another room, decorated with a handful of pieces like the ones in the first room but mostly larger paintings and mirrors and a few photos here and there. There's a black chair in the middle of the far wall and a sink in the adjacent corner, and another bar counter covered in stacks of paper and art supplies and a handful of coffee cups. It was cluttered in a cozy way that felt almost welcoming, almost like it was lived in. Zuko comes to a stop in front of one of the bar stools while Sokka continues around the counter.

"So!" Sokka emphasizes it with a clap before digging through one of the paper stacks. "This--" he pulls out a sheet near the bottom-- "is what I came up with." He lays it down on the counter and turns it so Zuko can see. "What do you think?"

"Wow." Zuko picks it up to look at it. It's better than he had imagined. The dragon is incredibly detailed, thankfully missing any wings, and it curls around and through a dozen little lotus flowers. It looks amazing, and it's somehow got the feeling of being ancient and alive. "This is incredible, Sokka. Seriously."

"Great! I was actually really excited to do this one, it's one of the cooler design requests I've gotten lately. I spent, like, a day researching Japanese dragon lore, so thanks for that. Super fun." His hand goes up to rub at the back of his neck. "So, I'll get you some paperwork to fill out while I print out the stencil and prep my station, okay?"

"Yeah, totally." Zuko's still admiring the design when Sokka slaps down a clipboard and a pen in front of Zuko and he jumps.

"Yikes, sorry!"

"No, no problem. Sorry." Zuko looks up at Sokka and smiles at him, hoping his sincerity is readable despite the mask.

"Okay." Sokka's cheeks puff out a little at the sides of his grey mask-- it's got these stupid cute embroidered stars on it that look handsewn--, so Zuko knows he's smiling. He notices with a start that Sokka has a little section of blue in his left iris, cutting through dark brown. Zuko feels faint for the second time, because literally who has eyes like that, what the fuck. He keeps looking at him even when Sokka turns to a laptop and starts tapping away at it. He finally remembers himself when Sokka shuts the laptop and a printer starts to whir, and he looks down at the sheet in front of him.

"So the top bit is all consent stuff, and you'll just put your initials on the lines." Sokka drops down so the top of his head is just visible over the countertop and continues, "The next section is a questionnaire, and then personal info. Just circle yes or no. Let me know if you have any questionnaire questions."

Zuko breathes a little laugh and tries to focus. The consent stuff is fairly standard, all about liability and photo releases, and he jumps down to fill out the personal info next. The form asks for his pronouns, which Zuko thinks is nice. He moves back up to the questionnaire. Allergies? Yes, dairy. _Is that relevant?_ He puts it down anyway, just in case. No drugs, no bleeding disorders. He's not prone to fainting spells unless he's around cute boys, so he puts a no for that one. He answers the last few questions and sets the pen down on top of the clipboard.

"All good?" Zuko looks up and acknowledges that Sokka is probably going to kill him. He had pulled his hair up into a bun while Zuko was filling out the form, revealing all-shaved sides and maybe half a dozen piercings on his right ear. There’s no way this guy was real. He leaned slightly over the counter to look at the sheet with a discerning eye before just picking it up.

"Uh, yeah. All good." Sokka held the clipboard a good bit away from himself as he read, squinting a little like he was having trouble deciphering it. He moves a hand up to touch his temple and groans in obvious frustration, over what Zuko couldn't guess.

"Okay, um, let's eyeball placement before we do the real stencil. Jacket off, please!" Sokka reached out to tug at one of Zuko's sleeves.

"You could at least ask me to dinner first." And fuck, why did he say that? He's frozen, and Sokka's just looking at him with wide eyes, and nobody is saying anything. He's about to apologize when Sokka bursts into laughter, a real laugh that brings a smile to Zuko's face on impact, loud and bright like sunlight. He smiles as he shrugs off his jacket and throws it over one of the bar stools. He holds out his right arm for Sokka to lay a cut out of the design onto, but instead Sokka shakes his head lightly and grabs him by the elbow pulling him in front of one of the floor-length mirrors.

"You're funny. How does this look to you?" He's still holding Zuko's elbow, but his other hand comes up to hold the paper against the skin of his forearm. He's standing at a respectful distance, but the contact is making Zuko's heart rate kick up. He looks down at the design on his arm and then in the mirror, tilting his arm each way to see different angles.

"Hm," Zuko considers, and then grabs the edge of the paper and slides it closer to the crook of his elbow. "Maybe more like this?" Their fingers aren't touching but they're fairly close, interspaced like the teeth of a zipper. Zuko looks for Sokka's eyes in the mirror but only catches him looking at the side of his face. Then Sokka's hands are off him and he's pulling his stencil paper off the machine.

"Great! I'll be right back, don't move." And then Sokka takes off, taking the stencil paper and a pair of scissors with him as he disappears through the same door he came through when Zuko arrived. He hears boots stomping up stairs and across the floor above him. The bumps and bangs stop briefly, then continue unabated for the next two minutes (according to a neon-lit clock on the wall) while Zuko waits.

Sokka eventually stomps back down the stairs, looking frustrated. He leans over the counter and starts digging in the piles, and finally seems to find what he was looking for and literally shouts "eureka!"

"So sorry, I misplaced my glasses. Katara says I need to get one of those chains old guys use to hang their glasses around their necks. I didn't mean to make you wait. And you didn’t actually have to _not move_."

Zuko has accepted that this guy is just going to get more attractive the longer he's with him, and has resigned himself to falling in love with him-- well, at least in the way that you fall in love with hot people your age in the grocery store during a particularly lonely week--, and tells him it's fine. Sokka washes his hands in the sink while Zuko watches the muscles in his arms flex. _Spirits._

"Okay so everything's set up, let me just get my gloves on and we can get you going with the stencil."

"Cool."

Sokka pulls on a pair of gloves and comes to stand in front of Zuko with a razor and a sponge of sweet-smelling jelly. "Let me see?" Zuko holds his arm up higher and Sokka sets the razor on the counter to put on his circular wire-frame glasses. He squints through them as he measures the distance between the design cut out and the crook of Zuko's with his fingers, and then takes the paper from Zuko. Then he shaves the pale skin of Zuko's forearm, wipes it with an antibacterial wipe, and then smooths the jelly-sponge over it.

"Okay, this stuff stains purple so try not to bump into your shirt. I ruined my favorite crop top with this stuff and ended up having to tie-dye it." He sounded genuinely sad at the loss, and Zuko wasn't sure how much more endearing Sokka could be before Zuko did something drastic. Then he turns and goes digging through his stacks again before coming up with the stencil paper he'd had mere moments ago when he was looking for his glasses.

"Okay, now I'm gonna lay the stencil on, so try not to move." He remeasures the distance with his fingers and says "We can always redo it, but…" he leans down closer to Zuko's arm, "I like to…" he peers down his nose through his glasses, "I like to try and get it on…" he lays the stencil paper against Zuko's skin, "the first try." He smooths his gloved thumbs gently over the paper, and Zuko watches with rapt attention as the paper soaks purple at the edges. This was something he'd always been curious about.

"That's so cool." He'd said it mostly to himself but Sokka chuckles in response. Then he pulls the paper off, leaving behind a delicate purple replica on Zuko's arm.

"How's that for cool!" He turns and throws the discarded stencil in the bin behind him. "How's it look?"

Zuko's entranced. It's like he just realized this was actually happening. He turns to look in the mirror again, and looks and looks and looks. He makes contact with Sokka's expectant eyes in the mirror, and he smiles. "It's perfect."

Sokka returns his smile, and then a moment later he gestures toward the chair. Zuko turns away from the mirror and follows Sokka's directions for how to sit, his arm propped on a padded pedestal next to the chair.

"So I know we haven't really discussed color, and if you just want black that's totally cool, but I have an idea if you'd like to hear it."

"Absolutely." He doesn't say _I could listen to you talk forever_ , with his voice warm and clear and easy with laughter even when he wasn't joking, but he sure thinks it. Sokka explains the idea to him and looks hesitantly into Zuko's eyes for his opinion.

"Do it."

"You sure?" Zuko's heart is light when he notices Sokka's leg starts bouncing, and hopes that it's out of excitement.

"Yes. I trust you." And he beams when Sokka allows himself to voice his happiness. _Adorable_.

"Okay, so, if you need a break, you let me know and we take a break. I usually go over the whole thing twice, maybe a third since this has a good amount of detail. You ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

The pain is not anywhere near what he'd thought it would be. He says as much to Sokka, and he explains that handpoking is less traumatic than machine tattooing and even then people say he has a light hand.

"It's one of my finer qualities," he jokes. Zuko isn't sure how to reply, with the quarantine steeply degrading his already lacking social skills simply out of disuse, so he instead compliments Sokka's tattoos.

"Aw, shucks. But yeah, thanks. My favorite's the little cowboy duckling on my thigh, got it on a dare. Man, was Katara mad." He says it with a fondness that reminds Zuko of the best times with his own sister.

"I like the one on your forearm." His right forearm was covered in bands and repeating shapes, some looked like Y's and some like diamonds and some just shorter lines that stood perpendicular against the bands. It looked older than the other ones he could see and not as defined.

"Thanks. It's traditional Inuit _tupik_ , even though it's usually just the women who get them. My family's been working to bring back some of the culture we lost to the colonizers, so we try to educate about the tattooing tradition and the language. My dad teaches Inupiaq at the university in Fairbanks, but Katara's scared of needles so she won't get tattoos. Still don't know how she's gonna get through med school." The passion in his voice hardens it just a little, but it's hopeful too. It's mesmerizing.

"Inupiaq, huh?" The word is understandably foreign on Zuko's tongue. "I've never heard of it before. I was trying to figure out what language Katara and Aang were speaking." He still wonders what exactly they were saying.

"They did that in front of you?" He groans and rolls his head back, pausing in his poking. "I keep telling them not to do that in front of clients, but then Aang lectures me on _'sharing the culture_ ' and ' _normalizing diversity_ '. They just like to gossip." Zuko huffs out a laugh and pushes the concern of just what they were gossiping about to the side, because he has a question he doesn't want to lose track of before he can ask it.

"Can I ask- and feel free to ignore me obviously- but I'm curious how come you got the tattoo if it's traditionally for women?" Sokka's shoulders tense a little and his nose scrunches under the bridge of his glasses.

"It's the same as my mom's. My Gran Gran did it for me on the anniversary once I was of age, you know, as something to remember her by." Zuko regrets ever speaking, ever breathing, because of the way the air turns stormy when Sokka stops talking. He can empathize, so he does what he can to recover and save the conversation.

"This one's for my uncle. He's been taking care of me since I couldn't live with my dad anymore." Sokka looks up from his work and into his eyes, and Zuko pushes a piece of stray hair back behind his shriveled left ear, even though Sokka can't see the damage from where he sits at Zuko's right. "He has a dragon too, because it symbolizes strength and wisdom and bravery. The lotus flowers symbolize rebirth. He would always say-" and he puts on an awful approximation of his uncle's wizened voice- "'even in the murkiest water, the lotus takes root and blooms into the most beautiful flower.'"

He smiles a bit as he remembers a particular conversation they had in the tea shop when Zuko was sixteen and still full of anger and _fear_.

"And after this one, I'm going to get a fire lily on my other arm for my mom. I still don't really know what happened to her, but I haven't seen her since I was eleven." He'd found peace with her leaving after a few years with Uncle and lots of therapy, but it was still easier to focus on her absence rather than the happy times he'd shared with her. Sokka returns to the tattoo and he's quiet for a long time, but the feeling in the air isn't suffocating anymore.

"Thanks." Sokka's ears are red and his voice is a bit thicker, and Zuko understands.

"Not a problem."

Sokka gets into a rhythm again of reinking and poking and wiping away the excess again and again, and Zuko just listens to the shop music for a little while. It's been switching abruptly between genres the whole time Zuko's been there, and he's suspicious that it's just Sokka's liked songs on shuffle. Sinatra's _Fly Me To The Moon_ bleeds into Nicki Minaj and then into Neon Trees and Queen and Clairo and lots more that Zuko's never heard before. It jumped around the same way Sokka moved around the shop in a flurry and shook his leg in concentration. It was _him_ , for sure.

"So this is your first?"

"Oh, yeah. Well, kind of. First professional one." Sokka's eyebrows shoot up and his tone fills with mirth.

"You got one of those back-alley stick and pokes?" Zuko huffs in play annoyance at the accusation.

"It didn't happen in an _alley_." Sokka snorts. "My first girlfriend did it when we were like fourteen."

" _Oh_." The surprise in his tone makes Zuko panic for a moment.

"And then my boyfriend-- ex-boyfriend-- Jet would make fun of me for it all time."

"Oh." A beat passes. "Well, my first was also a shitty stick and poke done by my first girlfriend when she was diagnosed with cancer. She ended up being fine and now I just have a crappy tattoo."

Sokka isn't taking that seriously, so Zuko doesn't either. "That's rough, buddy."

"Hah! Tell me about it. The real mistake was listening to her neighbor Hahn make fun of it, and _then_ dating that asshole." That draws a laugh out of Zuko and Sokka joins him with a chuckle of his own. It stops abruptly like something just clicked.

"Wait, did you say your ex was Jet?"

"Uh. Yeah, why?"

"Jet Kalam?"

"No shit, do you know him?"

"My sister dated him in high school! Kind of a loser, huh?"

"He's just passionate, I think."

"Yeah, that's for sure. Katara broke up with him after they got into a screaming match about her wanting to go to a good school. Said she was buying into, like, elitist propaganda or something."

"Yikes. No yeah, he got into it with me because I'm _related_ to someone with money." He then recounted the story of when Jet found out his dad was Ozai Sozin of Phoenix Industries, who of course was estranged and made sure Zuko and Uncle never saw a cent of his money, and got so upset with him that he caused a scene in the tea shop and had the cops called on him when he got in Uncle's face. Uncle, of course, had him on the floor before the cops could even get there once Zuko let things get physical, and let him go. Sokka lets out a low whistle.

"Sheesh. At least Hahn was just a regular dick and not some over-enthused hippy. I'm done with the first pass, if you need a break, by the way."

Zuko looks down in surprise at the mostly inked dragon. His skin is red and the lines aren't perfect yet, but it's coming together. He can feel the sting and he feels warm under his skin, but he tells Sokka he's good to continue. It's rawer on the second pass, but still manageable. Light hand, he'd said. It's quiet for another few minutes, comfortable.

"I'm curious, what is it? The stick and poke, I mean." It's Zuko who'd spoken up, even though usually during these types of things he prefers silence. Maybe he just wanted to learn more about the guy, sue him.

"Oh! Yeah. Yue-- the girlfriend-- was really into the moon. Funny enough she's gay now and you know how lesbians are with the moon and everything. It's just a little crescent, about half-dollar sized, right above my left knee. The lines are sloppy and way too thick but I can't bring myself to cover it up. She'd probably be sad if I did anyway." Sokka looks up when Zuko doesn't reply to find Zuko looking back at him incredulously.

"What?"

Zuko shakes his head in hopes of clearing it a little. It sounds like a tumblr "soulmates" writing prompt.

"Well one, my girlfriend is also a lesbian, but more importantly my tattoo is a sun, half-dollar sized, right above my right knee."

"You're joking."

"Dead serious." He had half a mind to prove it and show him. Sokka just laughs, loud and barking.

"Aw look at us, a perfect matched set!"

And he's laughing, and Zuko's laughing too, but the words still burn a hole in Zuko's thoughts for the remainder of the session.

They talk about their tastes in music, which overlap in a lot of places purely by virtue of the vastness of Sokka's, about Zuko's friends Mai and Toph and his job at the Jasmine Dragon ( _it's so weird we haven't met before, I go there all the time, Sokka says_ ).

Sokka tells him a little more about his dads back home in Alaska and Katara and Aang's upcoming wedding (and Zuko doesn’t mention his family halfway across the state, he's had enough for one day), how they both met their mutual friend Ty Lee ( _no but actually how come I didn't meet you sooner, Sokka asks_ ).

They get lost in discussing their shared interest in swords and their difference in opinion on the Star Wars vs Star Trek debate and their newest installments, and favorite books and movies and foods. Sokka makes him snort-laugh at a story about shaving Aang's cat to look like a dinosaur ( _seriously, where have you been?_ ).

At some point, Sokka switches to color ink, and the time passes easily.

"There." And Zuko actually looks down at his arm for the first time in a long while, and is awestruck.

The dragon is just as alive as it was on paper, thin-lined detail scales in stark contrast to Zuko's skin arching delicately over the dragon's body as it weaves through lotus blooms, but the color Sokka added brings magic with it. The lotus flowers almost glow with white ink accents, and the scales on the dragon are lined with touches of red that make it look like it's on fire. Sokka had managed to somehow blend every color seamlessly while allowing each its place to stand out. It took Zuko's breath away.

"So, what's the verdict?" And Sokka had the nerve to sound nervous!

"Sokka I don't know what to say. This is incredible. You're incredible. It's fucking beautiful. This tattoo is so good I could kiss you."

"You could at least ask me to dinner first." He mimics, voice dripping with amusement.

Zuko tries to stop his heart rate from rocketing up to light speed, because Sokka likes him too, but he launches into the aftercare spiel before Zuko gets a chance to reply. He has to knock Zuko's hand away twice when he tries to touch it while Sokka takes pictures for his shop instagram, smiling all the while. He finally, much to Zuko's discontent, covers the tattoo with ointment, saran wrap, and Zuko's choice of color of Coban wrap (Katara thinks giving out lollipops is stupid so Sokka had to settle for multicolored bandages) (Zuko picks blue).

It's not until Sokka's handing over aftercare instructions, his business card, and a handful of his homemade stickers that Zuko finally makes the leap.

"So, can I ask you to dinner now? Or coffee, or drinks, or whatever you want." He flushes and knows Toph would laugh at him for sounding desperate.

"Are you free now?" Sokka asks, blushing at the ears and sounding hopeful.

Sokka cleans up quickly and shuts the shop down, locking the door as they leave together. They hold hands as they walk to Zuko's favorite noodle shop, and they kiss in the heat of Sokka's usual bar. They're barely tipsy when they make it back to the Flying Bison and climb the stairs at the back to Sokka's apartment, and they agree in the morning to see each other again soon.

\---------

Two years later Zuko moves into the apartment above the Flying Bison and it isn't long after that that they agree to get matching tattoos. Sokka gives Zuko a crescent moon, about the size of a silver dollar, just above his left knee. And Sokka must really love him, because he lets Zuko give him a sun, about the size of a silver dollar, just above his right knee (even though it comes out squiggly and misshapen).

And time proves what they already knew from the day they met.

They were a perfect matched set.

**Author's Note:**

> _Katara sizes up the guy standing awkwardly in front of her while he waits for her idiot brother to arrive. She says to Aang in Inupiaq, "He's pretty. I bet Sokka's gonna think he's in love with him by the end of the night and we'll have to hear about it."_
> 
> _Aang laughs and spares a glance at the guy. "Definitely. He'll probably be at the wedding."_
> 
> _And Katara was right, because she always is when it comes to Sokka. She tells him about this conversation after Zuko proposes a few years later._  
>  ______________
> 
> I hope you guys liked this as much as I liked writing it! You can find me on tumblr at babydotcom <3


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